Since the 3rd of January the library was the source of many trivial and minor everyday amusements for my fellow Orange Room loyalists and I. When the highlight of my day was filling up a water bottle or grabbing a coffee in the iLounge, the third year social equivalent of Gatecrasher Monday in freshers, I started to pick up on tiny incidents and irregularities which in turn evolved into sources of great amusement and entertainment.
If Carlsberg did amusing library incidents, then PDA (Public Displays of Affection for anyone not clued up) would be somewhere near the top of the list. PDA in the library is pretty much a no go, unless you are engaging in actual sex which is excusable purely for the purposes of banter. It is cringeworthy, incredibly distracting and crucially, for everyone else, hilarious. Whilst in the library I bore witness to two main types of PDA.
Firstly, mutual PDA, showcased by both members of a couple and evidenced by one pair at a computer around Pancake Day. They were clearly so engrossed in each other, that for a full 45 minutes they sat "making out" in clear view of over 100 students, much to everyone's amusement, except maybe the girl sat at the computer next to the spectacle. The motivation for this still defies my logic. If they were both so "eager", so to speak, surely in that 45 minutes, rather than engage in, frankly limited, activity in full public view, a better call would have been to go home and let events unfold from there. Though thankfully that was not the case, if that had occurred then I would have never seen the guy leaving the room and blowing multiple kisses in her direction.
Secondly, there is the PDA in which one half of the couple is clearly uncomfortable with the situation, yet does nothing but look slightly awkward and attempt to continue working. This was exampled by a girl handily giving her boyfriend a special treat in 1C who, with a facial expression of combined horror and an impression of Justin Timberlake in the YouTube video "Jizzed in my Pants", continued to work and did nothing to stop her petting the snake. After all, he did have a seminar to prepare for.
Of course, this is incredibly ignorant of me. Some couples may be so in love, experiencing such burning passions of desire, affection and lust (which I couldn't possibly understand or relate to), that in fact if they spend more than 2 minutes apart from each other the world may spontaneously combust. Really we should be thanking these people. Yeah, right. Call me cynical and unromantic (believe it or not I possess a softer side), but public affection should be reserved for special, romantic moments.
A further development that emerged like a Phoenix from the flames during the hellish experience that was writing a 13,500 word dissertation was the evolution of a library community. In all seriousness, I saw the same people day-in, day-out for three months, and actually got to know a few of them reasonably well which was great. This is a sincere thought in an otherwise light hearted and cynical blog.
There was camaraderie between us, the hard up protagonist students, forced to pay for our distinctly average higher education with limited access to resources, crap tutors and no 24/7 library, against the world. There we sat, in the Orange Room (our metaphorical Duck and Drake Inn), slaving day and night, sacrificing blood, sweat and tears to get this life changing piece of work in on time. Listening to our iPod Touches, in our Levi's and wearing Jack Wills we worked and worked from the break of dawn until 9pm (The Only Way Is Essex was on at quarter past). We Blackberry Messengered stories of our plight back home to the our middle class parents and to our housemates who had no approaching work, telling them tales of failing hard drives and unsaved work. It was make or break, this piece of work defined who we were as people and whether there was even the slightest chance of long term happiness in life. An unaccountable, dishonest government, a global recession, a "Broken Britain" could all be put to right, just by getting a 2:1. It was us against them.
Joking aside, I did actually meet many people and make a few friends in the library and there was a real sense of all in this together, which was comforting. Writing a dissertation is not a pleasant experience and it was great when congratulations and pleasantries were exchanged between everyone on hand in day. In fact as someone recently pointed out, I've met more girls in 3 months through working late nights and early mornings in the library than in 2 and half years at Gatecrasher. Food for thought.
Twitter is the perfect outlet for these little snippets of humour and I must confess that in the last 16 weeks or so I've become something of a social media whore. Lack of extended human contact and social activity resulted in multiple Facebook statuses and Twitter updates. An 80p pack of Fruit Pastilles; the world needed to know (9 likes to be fair). I found myself recording these little amusing stories and anecdotes online, in the vain belief that anyone actually cared (much like this blog). How ironic that I will shamelessly plug this post on Twitter later.
There is further irony in the fact that the more an individual uses social media directly correlates with the amount of actual social activity they are experiencing. Again, my cynicism could be overstepping the mark here and apologies if this seems like a judgmental thing to suggest; I changed my profile picture and posted a status this morning so I'm quite obviously a hypocrite.
It is worth considering though - at what point does social media seemingly or perceptively become synonymous with who we actually are, as people? Many judge individuals on their Facebook profile, it is a fact. I'm hardly claiming the moral high ground in all this. I do it. Furthermore, I'm aware that I'm open to judgement on the basis of my Facebook profile. It sounds ridiculous but its true. It's also true that anyone who judges me entirely on the number of status updates I post, is definitely not worth my time. I'll confess though, I list bands on my page which I genuinely love but also those which I believe people will find interesting. Certainly everyone has been guilty judging people on the basis of Facebook at least a handful of times, especially when first befriending someone online; the phrase Facebook stalking gets thrown around a fair bit. People are judged on how many status updates they do, what bands they list, what films they like.
The undertone of this blog is something which anyone reading this will already know. To judge people on Facebook is bizarre and we all do it. Furthermore, similar notions exist in the unfounded, yet slightly concerning, thought that we are all judged as people, by others on our academic records, our dissertation and our grades, rather than who we are and our character. I attempted to subtly allude to this earlier in this blog. This whole thought originally stemmed from a conversation I had with a friend over the film "Into the Wild", in which a 22 year graduate completely rejects society and hitchhikes to Alaska. He does not allow himself to be judged by socially constructed means, rather, he choses to let others judge him for who he is. How ironic that this conversation actually occurred on Facebook.
Just watch this YouTube clip:
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